Mali, 1982

A year ago, during the thirty-sixth session, President Moussa Traore,

head of State of Mali, affirmed from this rostrum that "The

aspiration of our peoples to live in dignity and in spiritual, moral

and material tranquility is thus being increasingly jeopardized".

Alas, the past year confirms that statement which should be a source

of fruitful meditation and deep reflection for us. In fact, 1982 will

above all confirm the prevalence of relationships of force in

international relations. The international community has been shaken

by political, economic and military crises which treaten the very

foundations of human civilization.

The past year, more than any other, seems to have been a year of

disillusion. Solutions to fundamental questions basic to the balance

of the world which were at one time within our reach crumbled because

of the resurgence of warlike activism and last- minute intransigence.

That is why the eyes of the world, a world which legitimately expects

from us just and lasting solutions for its stability, its security,

its economic, social and cultural progress, are fixed particularly

upon the thirty-seventh session of the General Assembly.

Because we know that Mr. Hollai is an experienced diplomat with a

long and full career; because he has dedicated part of that career to

defending, in this very Organization, the fundamental objectives of

the Charter, the Republic of Mali, a friend of his country, the

People's Republic of Hungary, places great hopes in his well-deserved

election which will, we are convinced, contribute to enriching our

common action in maintaining peace, respect for the sovereign

equality of States and the peaceful coexistence of all nations.

Of course, I cannot conceal the legitimate pride that my delegation

takes in the wide-ranging and positive action accomplished so

skilfully by Mr. Hollai's outstanding predecessor, Mr. Kittani, that

worthy son of the third world, of Iraq, a country which is a friend

of my own, who acquitted himself so ably in they should like also to

reiterate to the new Secretary-General, Mr. Perez de Cuellar, the

best wishes of the Government of the Republic of Mali, which

reaffirms its full readiness to co-operate most sincerely with him.

One of the long line of individuals who devote their talents and

their political courage to the cause of peace, he bears with him the

faith and hopes of the third-world countries which are resolutely

committed to preventing the bipolarization of the world. He has

already reflected in stirring terms in his report on the work of the

Organization and in his speeches the meaning of his fight for justice

and equity and also for the strengthening of the system of collective

security of the United Nations, an irreplaceable instrument for world

peace.

The United Nations is neither called upon nor able to provide magical

solutions to international problems. But we had become accustomed

year after year, in spite of certain negative factors, to winning

victories over ourselves which reflected our deep dedication to the

ideals, goals and principles of the Charter and to have our awareness

of our international responsibilities heightened day by day.

In the course of the past decades, the United Nations has given

particular meaning to its ascent towards universality. New forces

have strengthened its action and given new dynamism to its

structures. The virtues of wisdom and realism have often dispersed

the clouds which, streaked with lighting heralding lethal

thunderbolts, darkened the international horizon. Where agreement was

sometimes lacking, hope at least was allowed. That is why the United

Nations can quite rightly be pleased at having made its appreciable

contribution to the national liberation struggles. It can take pride

in having prepared international development strategy decades tor

low-income countries. It can also be proud at having created hopes

for the establishment of a new international economic order. Well may

it be proud also at having contributed to a sharper perception of the

danger represented by the arms race, especially the danger of atomic

weapons, and at having placed the individual at the center of its

concerns by stressing the magnificence and protection of his basic

rights.

Thus, in spite of pitfalls, in spite of certain sharp setbacks, in

spite of uncertainties that have often characterized the

international situation, at each of the previous sessions the

Assembly has attempted to pay its share for the safeguard and

maintenance of peace. The feeling has prevailed that where we lacked

immediate solutions to international problems, dialogue did enable us

to discharge our international responsibilities with respect for our

fundamental interests.

But this is where our hopes stop short. Indeed, as the

Secretary-General himself recalls in his brilliant report "The past

year has seen an alarming succession of international crises as well

as stalemates on a number of... international issues". Hence the

thirty-seventh session of the General Assembly has opened in the

atmosphere of a terrible, distressing vacuum.

It is therefore easy to understand why the recent twelfth special

session of the General Assembly, devoted to disarmament, in which

many distinguished personalities participated, concluded without even

reflecting the hopes that had been placed in it. And, worse still,

while it was meeting Beirut was crumbling under Israeli bombs and new

so-called conventional weapons were appearing on the battlefield,

which thus served as a testing ground.

The United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea has been adopted,

but with its chances of implementation blocked. The North-South

dialogue on the coming into being of the new international economic

order has foundered on national egoism.

The racist, illegal Pretoria regime has strengthened its alliances,

heightened its repression against South African patriots and

violated, with increasing brutality and even more bloodshed, the

sovereignty and integrity of neighboring States. Some Member States

persist, in their delirium of power, in their attempts to break the

will of peoples for independence. The United Nations will not at this

session be enriched by the admission of one of the nations still

under domination-although we had every reason to hope that that would

be so.

Thus the challenges that we have committed ourselves to meeting are

in fact taking on frightful dimensions.

The thirty-seventh session of the Assembly is being held at a time

when Palestinian people is experiencing the most tragic situation in

its existence. The Zionist war machine has been unleashed against the

Lebanese and Palestinian peoples with unequalled furor. The siege of

Beirut, the invasion of that city, the systematic destruction of

Palestinian refugee camps, hospitals and schools and, lastly and

above all, the Sabra and Shatila massacres lend the war in Lebanon

the character of genocide, a crime against mankind. That outright

aggression against Lebanon is a premeditated act of war against the

sovereignty and integrity of a State Member of the Organization. The

horrors that have been perpetrated bring back terrible memories. But

the peoples that do not have short memories have spoken up everywhere

in the world, including in Israel itself, against this repetition of

the massacre of an entire people.

What took place in Lebanon disturbs and frightens us, because there

is no greater incitement to crime than the apathy of those who, under

the dangerous illusion that only the neighbor's house is burning,

accept the inadmissible role of hearing and seeing no evil. In

international relations, indifference is the most serious complicity,

because it makes it possible for evil to progress and worsen.

The Zionist aggression in Lebanon is the consequence of the

unpunished acts of Israel which therefore continues to defy the

international community every day-as though the odious aggression of

June 1981 against the Iraqi people were not enough and as though the

arrogant annexation of the Syrian Golan Heights were a minor event.

Today it is the Lebanese and Palestinian civilians who are the

innocent victims of the blind violence characteristic of the policy

of the Zionist State.

The Security Council should have, for the cause of peace, drawn from

Chapter VII of the Charter its inspiration and justification for

action to induce the Government of Israel to respect the elementary

rules of international law. It is high time to come to our senses,

because Zionism just like apartheid and both are by their very

essence generators of tension-will expose mankind to a new

conflagration. Let us therefore act together to guarantee the

collective security of all the nations of the world.

There is no other solution for the Middle East crisis, and especially

the Palestinian question, than that set forth at this very rostrum a

year ago, at the 23rd meeting of the thirty-sixth session, by the

head of State of Mali, who, even at that time, welcomed what was

still called the Fahd plan and advocated, first, withdrawal from all

the occupied Arab territories and, secondly, recognition and

guarantee of the exercise of the national rights of the Palestinian

people under the leadership of the PLO, its sole authentic

representative.

Those proposals were reaffirmed once again by the non-aligned

movement during its recent Extraordinary Ministerial Meetings. They

are being increasingly accepted, even by Israel's friends, including

the most fervent ones. They are the backbone of the recent plan, of

the Twelfth Arab Summit Conference, at Fez, which the Government of

Mali supports.

Israel's brutal rejection of those proposals is not at all

surprising. This systematically rigid attitude is part of the Zionist

logic based on defiance and arrogance. The leaders of the PLO, with

their usual grandeur, have solemnly declared that they adhere to

those realistic proposals. Israel, on the other hand, rejects any

solution which might stop the massacre in the Middle East and enable

all the peoples of that region to live in peace, honor and dignity.

However, we must remember this: the Palestinian fighters have left

Beirut but their destiny is not buried there. They left Beirut with

the strong determination to impose their national identity.

The repercussions of the situation in Palestine have on four

occasions almost led mankind to perdition. In the face of the

persistence of that danger and the imminent outbreak of even more

serious conflicts, the relevant General Assembly resolutions on the

convening in 1983 of an international conference on Palestine demand

attention as very valuable proposals in the accomplishment of our

compelling duty to restore peace to the Middle East and finally

enable the Palestinian people to enjoy its inalienable right to

freedom.

That right to freedom is part of the whole series of rights that the

Charter acknowledges for all peoples and that have been codified,

particularly in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. But, like

Israel, South Africa does not understand these principles, which have

international scope, for the system which it has made into a system

of administration, denies man his very existence. This unacceptable

system is disturbing the harmony of international relations.

In its resolution 36/172 B the General Assembly proclaimed the year

1982 the International Year of Mobilization for Sanctions against

South Africa. Since then, the recommendations made to that end by

many political, economic and social governmental and nongovernmental

organizations have taken on new meaning, on this twentieth

anniversary of the arbitrary imprisonment of Nelson Mandela, whose

vision of freedom is the same as that of those great men who by their

courage and actions gave meaning to life.

The banning of the apartheid regime from United Nations activities is

only poor consolation for those who are truly committed to defending

the basic rights of man and peace. Chapter VII of the Charter has a

wealth of resources for isolating and destroying that hateful system

of It is that system which is preventing a just and peaceful

solution to the problem of Namibia.

The United Nations by legitimately assuming trusteeship over that

Territory committed itself to helping the Namibian people to complete

the re- conquest of its homeland. The steps taken in accordance with

that commitment have been essentially of two types: the first was the

recognition of SWAPO as the sole authentic representative of the

Namibian people, because it is the only organization which has palm

in blood the price of the dignity of its homeland; the second led to

the adoption by the United Nations of recommendations and decisions

pertaining to the Namibian issue, including Security Council

resolutions 385 and 435, adopted unanimously, which contain a plan to

settle the crisis. The methods for implementing that plan were the

subject of long and patient negotiations between Pretoria and,

respectively, the United Nations and five Western Powers. An

exceptional opportunity was thus presented to us to abide by our

commitments in regard to the maintenance of international peace and

security.

But Pretoria remained frozen in its total lack of understanding for

the requirements of peace. Each time that a glimmer of hope appeared

on the horizon for Namibia's accession to independence, the racist

regime of South Africa snuffed it out through successive

recantations-some involving fantastic allegations in regard to the

partiality of the Organization, others putting the emphasis on the

presence of Cuban troops in Angola. The duty incumbent upon us is to

commit ourselves resolutely to correct implementation of the relevant

resolutions on Namibia. The implementation of those resolutions which

pertain solely to the independence of that Territory cannot have any

impact on or link with commitments entered into by States bordering

on South Africa, in the exercise of their sovereignty, to ensure the

security of their peoples in the face of precisely the warlike

incursions of South Africa.

Mali's people and leaders vigorously oppose that grotesque

machination, which is only a fallacious amalgam aimed at delaying the

process of independence for Namibia. For Mali, the presence of Cuban

forces comes within the exclusive sovereignty of Angola and cannot be

an element for negotiation between South Africa and those who are

fighting-that is, the heroic SWAPO combatants.

The position adopted by the United Nations, to lead Namibia to

independence, is based on the purposes and principles of the Charter.

If it has provoked the wrath of South Africa, as was to be expected,

it is even more valid.

It is up to the Namibian people and to them alone to seek and apply

the appropriate political formulas to guide them in carrying out

their national duty. Any attempt to subject its independence to other

purposes will only lead to the preservation of foreign interests.

The Government of the Republic of Mali hopes that between now and the

end of the current session of the General Assembly, an independent

Namibia, with its territorial integrity intact, will take its

rightful place in the United Nations. That independence will only be

deserved, in view of the great sacrifices made by the courageous

Namibian people in the defense of the ideals of the United Nations.

It is on behalf of those ideals of justice, equity and peace that the

Government of the Republic of Mali has committed itself to the quest

for a peaceful solution to the problem of the future of the Sahraoui

people. We have on several occasions set forth and analyzed here the

various steps taken by Africa and the many initiatives taken by the

head of State of Mali to bring about a satisfactory solution to this

painful-because it is fratricidal-conflict. The question of Western

Sahara, which bears the imprint of incomplete decolonization, cannot

be solved without free expression by the Sahraoui people-that is to

say, the exercise of true and inevitable self-determination. Africa,

in its traditional wisdom, had already at the fifteenth session of

the Assembly of Heads of State and Government of the OAU, at

Khartoum, recognized that to be the only solution. But it was only at

the eighteenth session, at Nairobi, that unanimous agreement was

reached by the parties to the conflict to the organization of a general

and free referendum on self-determination.

One could have thought, therefore, that the real dangers inherent in

that conflict had been eliminated because the path of wisdom and

realism had finally been taken by the protagonists, thanks to the

vigilance and firmness of Africa. But to think that was not to

understand sufficiently the demons of history. If the latest African

meeting, the nineteenth session of the OAU Assembly, held at Tripoli,

bore the stamp of the Sahraoui equation, it is comforting to note

that once again Africa showed proof there of its traditional wisdom.

My country, Mali, which is honored to have constantly benefited from

the confidence of Africa in all its attempts patiently to search for

a solution to that delicate problem, will continue its efforts to

ensure that our continent, as in the heroic epochs of resistance and

struggles for independence, will in unity complete the elimination of

the after-effects and last vestiges of the colonial system. That

noble mission must be the concern of all African States, forced us

not to forget that the OAU remains above all the symbol of

anti-colonial resistance. The current crisis in our continental

organization will be mastered. Eternal Africa will be able to draw

from its age-old values the resources necessary to allow our unified

organization to pursue its constant march towards happiness, progress

and solidarity among African peoples.

To live in peace means to establish and strengthen links of

co-operation and tolerance of political and economic choices. That

means non-interference in the internal affairs of other States and

the strengthening of relations of good-neighborliness. The policy of

good-neighborliness recognized by the United Nations is indubitably

one of the most dynamic factors for the exploitation of the enormous

potential which continued progress in science and technology makes

available to nations.

The crossroad for several civilizations which enriched each other,

the cradle of a people which linked its destiny to that of others,

Mali has made good-neighborliness one of the pillars of its foreign

policy, The language that it desires to speak to its neighbors is

that of sincerity, tolerance and respect for the basic principles

which govern the existence of States. Mali is always open to

dialogue, to constructive discussions which unite people around

common basic interests.

That policy of positive good-neighborliness also implies active

solidarity among fraternal peoples faced with temporary difficulties.

That is why our country constantly pursues its efforts within the

African family to safeguard the national unity and territorial

integrity of Chad. Those objectives can only be achieved without any

outside interference in the internal affairs of an independent and

sovereign State, whose current crisis is no reason for placing it

under any trusteeship.

It is also on the strength of the principles I have just mentioned

that we appeal to our brothers on the Horn of Africa and in

Kampuchea, the Islamic Republic of Iran, Iraq, Afghanistan and Cyprus

honorably to end conflicts which can only expose them further to the

appetites of the forces of domination and make the fruits of the

struggle for emancipation increasingly bitter as well as dangerously

weaken the front that the third world has decided to form for the

restoration of its human and natural resources.

From Korea there does not come any glimmer of hope that would permit

us to believe in the just redress of one of the errors of the last

world war, which established arbitrary borders-an artificial line

within a single country, all of whose people aspires profoundly to

the unification of their common homeland. We hope that fraternal

dialogue and fruitful co-operation will triumph so that the great

Korean family will come together on the basis of the 10-point

reunification plan, which is an infinite source of inspiration.

As can be seen, an analysis of the international situation reminds

one of the situation during the great fear of the year 1000. Today

conflicts born of liberation struggles are taking on formidable

dimensions. Brothers are tearing each other apart. The policy of

diktat is resurfacing. The desire to impose solutions to

international disputes through threats and the use of force is again

common currency.

Conceived and drawn up on the ruins of a monstrous war, the Charter

of the United Nations was designed to open the world onto an era of

reconciliation of hearts and minds. But, unfortunately, the spirit of

competition continues. Nuclear experiments continue although,

according to all estimates, the existing stockpile of nuclear weapons

is more than capable of destroying our planet several times over.

There is no agreement on the spiraling arms race, because the

arguments advanced in the negotiations to restrain it are attached to

concepts which tend to transform effect into cause. The initial

concept can be reduced to the old adage, "If you want peace, prepare

for war". However, people have never stopped preparing for war and

have never stopped being in a state of war. Armament is seen to be a

stabilizing element in international relations, whereas, on the

contrary, the maintenance of such stability is conceivable only

without the threat of the use of armed force. The second concept is

that no disarmament is possible without the prior establishment of a

climate of international confidence. Here again, the terms of the

discussions on disarmament are inverted. Confidence is dissipated; it

emerges through a prism whose pieces must be put together on the

basis of a common agreement. Here the stumbling-block which has

impeded negotiations on disarmament is again the balance of forces.

Once again rhetoric has prevailed over the real will to negotiate. In

an atmosphere of negotiation in which confidence does not reign or in

which the stockpiling and improvement of weapons appear to be the

only guarantees against widespread conflict, the basis on which the

balance of strength rests is only a figment of the imagination.

The arms race leads inevitably to war. Only the kind of political

will that has made possible the adoption of the United Nations

Convention on the Law of the Sea and the International Development

Strategy for the First and the Second United Nations Development

Decade can lead to results in the negotiations on disarmament.

The manifestation of this political will was, unfortunately, lacking

during the launching of the global negotiations at the thirty-sixth

session. Nevertheless, here again, the goal pursued was very close.

The need for the establishment of a new international economic order

was seen by all to be a demand of our times. A number of obstacles

along the way were eliminated after long and patient negotiations.

The consensus which enabled progress to be achieved was not

maintained into the final phase of the negotiations, although these

pertained only to questions of procedure.

Here again, in the final phase of the negotiations, the North-South

dialogue lost its raison d'etre. A group of States, thinking only of

the status of their national economies, blocked the dialogue that had

been begun with a view to finding concerted solutions to common

problems. These problems may be rerouted, they may be subordinated to

temporary concerns, but their scope and their universality can only

become more compelling. They are common problems because they pertain

to the interdependence of States, and they require common solutions,

without which the world economic situation will only deteriorate

further.

An analysis of the world economic situation shows on the one hand a

more marked deterioration of trade relations and on the other hand a

trend towards absorbing the crisis through selfish and isolated

national policies. That is the way in which I have summarized the

bitter observations in the World Economic Survey, 1981-1982:

"Economic expansion decelerated markedly throughout the world... The

deceleration was particularly intense in the developing countries,

most of which experienced a significant fall in per capita incomes".

The growth rates of the developing countries have been falling

dangerously since 1978. The terms of trade have deteriorated further;

export earnings have not been sufficient to ensure debt servicing,

while at the same time official development assistance has become

more scarce and been tied to more and more conditions. For the first

time since the welcome establishment of UNDP-and we wish to praise

its efforts and its merits-UNDP has had its resources reduced. The

Ottawa, Cancun and Versailles economic summit meetings, as well as

the United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries, gave

rise to many hopes, which were very quickly dashed. Global

negotiations, the immediate launching of which is seen every day to

be an undeniable necessity, although promised, do not seem to be on

the horizon.

However, the industrialized countries are beginning in their turn to

be affected to their very foundations by something from which they

thought they were shielded, that is, an upheaval in the anachronistic

world economic system. In fact we are on the eve of an implosion of

the international monetary system. An increasingly large number of

developing countries can no longer pay the North the interest on

their numerous debts, which have reached the outrageous sum of $500

billion. Even though they transfer every year to the North the tidy

sum of $50 billion to service the debts and even though the South

receives annually from the North only $25 billion in the form of

official development assistance, the banks of the North are still

threatened with collapse. This is in no way surprising. This

disturbing observation only underscores once again the degree to

which the world economy is interdependent.

We must above all be convinced that it is upon an improvement of the

living conditions of the three quarters of the population of our

world which continues to live in extreme distress that the world

balance and the maintenance of international security depend. For

millions of people whose average income is less than $1 a day, it

takes little thought to comprehend and realize the fact that every

day about 4 million times that income goes into the production of

devices that could deprive them of the meagre benefits they hope to

derive for their subsistence. How can we explain to them, when every

day they wonder what their chances are of obtaining a small crust of

bread, that the cost of a jet fighter is equivalent to that of 15,000

tons of wheat and that the cost of a bomber is equivalent to that of

30 schools or 15 hospitals? How is it possible for them to

understand-and here we are referring to the statistics of the World

Bank-that 800 million of them are condemned to illiteracy while sums

that defy the imagination are swallowed up in the unbridled arms race?

For us, the peoples of the Sahelian region, where a relentless

drought prevails, where millions of people see their very survival

endangered, this dangerous evolution of the world's civilization is

stupefying. The international community has, of course, decided to

mobilize to restore life to the Sahel. We are therefore pleased once

again to thank the many States and groups of States and governmental

and non-governmental international organizations that have helped us

to carry out some of our projects. However, it remains true that the

desert continues to advance. The drought that prevails in the

Sahelian regions can no longer be attributed to temporary

meteorological phenomena. It prevails as a profound and more and more

widespread evil, for the combating of which, however, technical and

human resources exist.

A careful look at the phenomenon of drought, because of its

persistence and its magnitude, shows a disturbing evolution in the

ecology of our world. Yet the time is past when lightning caused man

to dash for cover. The struggle to keep our environment healthy and

sound so that man can flourish by applying all his creative skills,

has never been closer to being won. Unfortunately, thousands of

experts, and even the most competent among them, devote their

intelligence to improving the war machine that is destined to destroy

mankind.

The rehabilitation of the world economy so as to give it new life and

vigor is thus among the primary challenges we shall have to meet in

the course of this decade if we are to preserve peace.

The Republic of Mali, because it is determined to participate

actively in the collective effort to rehabilitate the world economy,

has chosen a course of development that is in keeping with the ethic

of its people and with the demands of the modem international

community. The building of an independent and planned national

economy, in our view, is the appropriate response to the concerns of

our people. Having made this choice, we are endeavoring to adapt our

economic policies to meet the deepest aspirations of our population.

Like our neighbors, we believe that the patient construction of

regional groups and subgroups such as the Organization for the

Development of the Senegal River, the West African Economic

Community, the Conference of Saharan States and the Economic

Community of the States of Western Africa is the only way

significantly and decisively to contribute to the realization of the

Lagos Plan which resulted from the important second special session

of the OAU Assembly in April 19S0 devoted to a thorough consideration

of economic questions of concern to the African continent. The

guidelines contained in that plan, which is now an historic one, arc

for Africans the only way to survive in the face of the serious

economic crisis. At the thirty-sixth session, in this very Hall,

President Moussa Traore spoke these words: "Together with you, we

wish to restore the confidence of our people in their creative

abilities. Together with you, we wish to preserve international peace

and security." We have come here once again to reaffirm our readiness

to build, together with all the States of the international

community, another world, a new world commensurate with our creative

genius so that universal civilization can flourish.

This readiness on the part of the Republic of Mali to work for peace,

justice and equity is constant. That is so because our aspirations

and hopes are shared by the rest of the international community.

Those hopes will exist as long as peoples are compelled to resort to

weapons to defend their raison d'etre and their dignity. They will

exist as long as racism and its most odious manifestation, apartheid,

continue as a system of government.

A world that trembles in fear of nuclear peril is not a free world,

and it is even less a world of peace. People who are ill for lack of

care, who are sick of being hungry will, without warning, upset the

present precarious order, precarious because it is obsolete.

The past year has been fraught with threats. That is why we are here

in this Hall with the other members of the Assembly to clear the

ground for the establishment of a more stable system of collective

security.

We should not be shouldering our responsibilities and we should

betray the confidence of our peoples if in our actions we failed to

provide concrete, pragmatic, realistic and lasting solutions for the

sole raison d'etre of man: that of living in peace with himself and

with his fellow man, free of fear of future misery and conflicts, in

ever larger freedom.